For Aristotle, “the essence what is equitable is that it is an amendment of the law, in those points where is fails through the generality of its language”. The application of legal rules produces appropriate (just) results in the majority of cases, but not in all. When its application would lead to injustice, a legal rule can be defeated by equity.
The idea of
This idea is also relevant in the tax law domain. In this area, the dominant theoretical position is legal formalism, with its focus on (strictly conceived) legal rules in legislation and in the application of the law. The Aristotelian reflection on